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Young America: 1964

"Cornett family, 1964. Teenage boy smoking." An image from photographer William Gedney's first visit with the Cornett family in Leatherwood, Kentucky. Gedney Photographs and Writings Collection, Duke University. View full size.

What worldview must one have to look at a photograph of two little girls playing with dolls and determine from that alone that they are not "sweet, wholesome people."

Poverty is a social situation, not a moral one, and does not preclude sweetness and wholesomeness any more than wealth guarantees it. Drawing conclusions and making assumptions about personalities from photographs is always risky, but drawing conclusions about the morals of children from a photograph is pathological.

One thing for people to keep in mind is that Kentucky is a huge tobacco growing state. Tobacco was cheap, readily available and, let's not forget, socially acceptable (dare I say popular?) in 1964. My father, born and raised in Pike County , has been smoking since he was 10 and now he's 64. This was absolutely not uncommon in Eastern Kentucky in those days.

Not my favorite pic of this family, but shows true teenage life and reminds me of my early teenage years. Everyone remembers the feeling of that first drag on a cig and your lungs trying to tell you "no way". In my case the peer pressure won the day, sadly. On the other hand, I quit many, many years ago before the damage was done.

Shorpy.com | History in HD is a vintage photo blog featuring thousands of high-definition images from the 1850s to 1950s. The site is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a teenage coal miner who lived 100 years ago.